River Of Fire

Violetshine found that the ache in her heart was eased by the antics of the kits. But she knew it would be hard for Berryheart to learn that her kits would be raised in SkyClan—that ShadowClan was gone. “That will be for the Clan leader to decide,” she mewed. “So what happened to you?” she added to Berryheart. “Where have you been all this time?”

“We were all so terrified by the way Darktail took over ShadowClan,” Berryheart explained. “We ran away and found a place of our own, in a tumbledown Twoleg den. Then we met Tigerheart and Dovewing traveling home, and they told us Darktail was gone, and it was safe to come back.” Her expression darkened. “We were traveling back to ShadowClan when Hollowkit was attacked by an owl.” She rested her tail on the kit’s shoulder, and Violetshine noticed for the first time that Hollowkit had lost a few clumps of fur, and had a healing scratch on one shoulder. “Tigerheart saved Hollowkit,” Berryheart went on, “but the owl injured him so badly that he didn’t recover. If only we could have made it back to where he could see a medicine cat before he died. . . .”

“But he’s not dead!” The shrill assertion startled Violetshine. She turned to see where it had come from and saw Dovewing and Tigerheart’s little gray tom, Shadowkit. “I know he’s not!”

A pang of sorrow clawed through Violetshine as she gazed at the kit, who faced them with wide eyes. He’s too young to understand, she thought.

“I had a dream,” Shadowkit went on. “I was playing with my father, in a place not far from here, and I know it was a true dream.”

Violetshine stroked her tail gently down the kit’s side, noticing the dark stripes, so like his father’s. “What makes you think so, little one?” she asked.

“I just do. We were in this big hollow, with boulders and bushes at the top and pine trees all around. Their branches hung down really low. At the bottom of the hollow there were ferns and bramble thickets, and I lived in one of them with Dovewing and Pouncekit and Lightkit. We all played moss-ball with Tigerheart.”

Violetshine exchanged a puzzled look with Berryheart. “That sounds like the ShadowClan camp.”

“But he’s never been there!” Berryheart protested.

A shiver passed through Violetshine as if she had been lapping at icy water. “One of his parents must have told him about it,” she murmured to Berryheart, but all the same, Shadowkit’s words had woken a tiny spark of hope inside her.

Suppose it was a vision?

Time crawled past until the last streaks of sunlight disappeared, far away over ShadowClan territory. Violetshine was finding it harder and harder to keep her spark of hope alive, while the cats huddled together in the gathering shadows. The first warriors of StarClan appeared in the sky, and a pale moon rose above the summit of the hill.

“Whatever happens,” Cloverfoot whispered after a while, “it will be good to go back to the ShadowClan camp. It never stopped being home, no matter what happened.”

“But ShadowClan doesn’t live there anymore,” Violetshine told her miserably. “There were so few of them left, and they didn’t have a leader, so they joined SkyClan in their new camp.”

The returning ShadowClan cats stared at her, horror in their eyes, their ears lying flat as their shoulder fur began to bristle.

“What do you mean?” Sparrowtail demanded. “No leader? What happened to Rowanstar?”

Violetshine swallowed, wishing that she didn’t have to be the bearer of such terrible news. “Rowanstar is dead,” she replied. “But before he died, he . . . he gave his nine lives back to StarClan. He didn’t think he was worthy to be a leader because he had let Darktail destroy his Clan.”

Stunned, the ShadowClan cats gazed at one another. Violetshine could see that they didn’t want to believe what she had told them.

“I didn’t know . . . that a leader could do that,” Berryheart rasped.

“No cat knew, until it happened,” Violetshine meowed. “And since then, StarClan hasn’t sent a sign to say which cat should be ShadowClan leader in Rowanclaw’s place.”

“So all our Clanmates joined SkyClan?” Cloverfoot’s eyes were full of pleading, as if she wanted some cat to tell her it wasn’t true.

Violetshine nodded.

“Fox dung to all that!” Slatefur exclaimed loudly. “I don’t want to be a SkyClan cat! I’ve always been ShadowClan, and I always will be.”

His strident tones had caught the attention of Leafstar and Hawkwing, a couple of fox-lengths away. Violetshine noticed them giving him an annoyed look.

Neither cat said anything, though Leafstar was rising to her paws when the sound of paw steps came from the top of the slope, followed by the rustling sound of a cat pushing their way through the bushes that surrounded the hollow of the Moonpool.

Leafstar sat back down as Puddleshine emerged into the open. His eyes were wide, his fur bristling with shock, and his breathing came fast and shallow.